


out in daylight

by Tat_Tat



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Drabble Collection, Episode Related, Ficlet Collection, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-13
Updated: 2018-12-29
Packaged: 2019-05-06 00:25:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 1,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14630166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tat_Tat/pseuds/Tat_Tat
Summary: A collection of gen Steven Universe drabbles and one-shots, written after the episode 'A Single Pale Rose' aired.





	1. Can't go back

**Author's Note:**

> I either start a new fic collection when the volume of chapters has grown too big or a BIG plot point occurs that makes what I've written before outdated. The latter happened.

She had taken everything-- almost. She had the barn, the meep morps, and the collector’s edition of the Camp Pining Hearts DVDs. She still had the comic books Amethyst let her borrow too.

She had almost everything, and she was safe, but it was all as hollow as the halls of the abandoned moonbase.

She had almost everything, but it meant nothing.

She was safe, that should have been enough.

She watched Peridot through the observation unit but it was never enough. She could go back, she thought but she was paralyzed with fear of the Diamonds and was sure that Peridot, that even Steven didn’t want to see her again.

She looked away from her reflection cast through the window, and away from her shadow, narrow.

And she did not blame them at all.


	2. A Single Pale Rose

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, if you haven't watched 'A Single Pale Rose' yet you shouldn't be reading this.

Another meeting, another talk. Pink Diamond stormed past Yellow and Blue Diamond, only proving their point that she was irrational. She knew this, but she had to get away. 

She surprised her pearl when she burst through the curtains of her palanquin, for a moment her anger softened as she muttered a quick ‘sorry’ and took to her seat.

“Where to, my Diamond?” Pearl asked, cautious of her temperament. But Pink Diamond didn’t answer, she balled her gloved hands into fists and pounded them on the armrests of her throne. 

“I’m tired of being told what to do!” She shouted.

And then, quietly, she thought she heard Pearl mutter, “me too.”

Again, her temper quelled, curious. She turned to Pearl. “What did you say?”

Pearl raised her hands up in alarm, realizing her mistake and covered her mouth, shaking her head. “Nothing.” she murmured behind her hands.

Pink Diamond rose from her seat to bend down. She pulled Pearl’s hands from her mouth, searching for common ground, an ally, a friend that could understand her. For a moment it was there, for a moment there was truth.

For a moment, she wasn’t alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is how I imagine it started. Bonding over being tired of being told what to do, although Rose will never fully understand what Pearl has gone through.


	3. in fractured light l Jasper

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally was my Jasperzine entry but the word count minimum turned out to be 500 words. Shame because I really like this.

Alone.

In company

Admiration and respect handed easily to

And it’s so empty

Because she’s not there

Never got to know 

Who she was

If she’d adore you like everyone

Thinks your’re perfect

Born for a purpose

That isn’t there anymore

So you make your own

Revenge.

And that’s still hollow

Hollow like the hole you came from

Hollow like the words

My diamond

Echoing

In fractured light

Echoing

To reach

What’s not there


	4. Now we're only falling apart

Pearl never liked to visit the Kindergarten, where everything had started. Rose would become too quiet during their visits, so quiet that afterwards she would retreat to her room.

Pearl wondered why Rose continued to go there. She thought she knew why but was afraid to ask.

She wanted Rose to stop, but followed behind her, to be with her when guilt struck.

When they found Amethyst, Pearl finally understood. That day when they left the Kindergarten, Rose smiled.


	5. What's Your Problem?

Amethyst used to pride herself for not paying attention until Steven finally confided in her after their fight in the Sky Arena. She’d never noticed how her and everyone else’s words and their moods had affected him. And then she saw what it had really done to him, when he gave himself away to Homeworld and boarded Aquamarine’s ship. She had yelled at Pearl then, and even blamed Garnet, but had mostly blamed herself for not noticing sooner.

She sucked at helping, it was funny that the moment she wanted to try at something she sucked at it. She tried to talk to him during vacation, to get him to talk like last time and felt more like a failure under his silence, more than she had when Jasper had beaten her.

And now he was bearing the weight of Rose’s mistakes on his shoulders again, feeling responsible for nothing he was responsible for. She watched him leave with Pearl to find Sapphire and didn’t know what to tell Ruby either. She let Ruby go (it wasn’t her problem) but she stayed behind for Steven.


	6. The Question

The tea was hot when Pearl poured it in the cup.

It froze when Sapphire picked it up, and there was a thin sheet of ice on her cheeks and down her chin, where her tears had fallen.


	7. Made of Honor

Before she was a Crystal gem, Bismuth made monolithic buildings, one of them had been the Sea Spire. 

When she met Rose she decided to make weapons to help their cause, but when Steven told her who Rose really was, Bismuth wasn’t sure what to make anymore. She had run off to her forge to get away and made weapons but it was without heart, her finished creations carelessly tossed aside.

After she’d calmed down, the hot air evaporating her tears she asked Steven what was on the gift registry again. He shook his head and said he had a better idea. He pulled out a thick book full of drawings and magazine clippings of people laughing and smiling and wearing white. He pointed at the rings on their fingers and Bismuth understood. She stretched her arms out, cracking her knuckles, and went straight to work with renewed purpose.


	8. Reunited

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It took me awhile to write anything for Reunited even though I had a clear idea what I'd write- there was just so much that went on and I was too excited that I didn't feel ready until now.

The bouquet of flowers exited Earth’s atmosphere, amazingly unharmed and landing at Lapis’s feet. 

Flowers reminded her of Peridot, who had taken up gardening with Amethyst and Steven, she had watched them till the land on Earth, through the Observation Orb on the moonbase. She wondered how the flowers had come all the way to space and suspected it was a plea from Steven or Peridot.

She hovered just close enough to Earth’s atmosphere to throw the bouquet back where it came from. And then, a moment after that, Blue and Yellow Diamond’s ships breezed past her.


	9. From Legs Here to Homeworld

_i._  
Pearl looked down, realizing that without thinking, after thousands of years she still assumed the position of a perfect pearl, placing her hands delicately in her lap when in the presence of a Diamond.

X

 _ii._  
When Peridot and Lapis reformed they came out with their hackles raised, unaware that the fight had long passed without them.

Bismuth explained everything, that had been the easy part. The hard part had been keeping Lapis from leaving Earth after she learned Steven had left to speak to White Diamond.

Peridot had kept her from leaving, throwing an empty soda can at her backside, saying she hadn’t changed at all.

Bismuth didn’t understand the history between the two, but she did know that Steven would need a place to stay when he returned and there was scrap metal from the diamond’s ships still littering the beach. She also knew that hard work put the mind at ease. She told Lapis and Peridot that if they had time to fight amongst themselves, they had time to work and before they could get a word in she assigned them each a job. Lapis was tasked with pulling the diamond’s ships from the ocean and Peridot helped Bismuth disassemble the parts. Lapis helped sparingly, but Greg proved to be more useful and they switched places: she watched the car wash while he prevented Bismuth from turning the house into a full fortress.


	10. untitled l Pearl, Rose, Pink Diamond

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "You will no longer worship the idols or stone images you have made--I will destroy them"

Pearl followed Rose into the night, to the sky arena. “What are we doing here, my Diamono-” She caught herself before Rose sharply turned around to face her. She didn’t answer or say anything and that worried Pearl, giving her no choice but to follow and to watch as Rose wrapped her hands around all symbols of Pink Diamond to crumble them into dust.


	11. I know places l Jasper, Peridot

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An unfinished piece that I wrapped up real quick. There was going to be some conversation between Jasper and Peridot about their unfortunate experiences with Lapis but that didn't make it. I like this better.

In the din of the dark, in Steven’s bathroom, Jasper and Peridot crowded inside of the bathtub, Jasper mostly in the tub and Peridot mostly in Jasper’s lap.

“Oh. That was me.” Peridot said smugly when Jasper mentioned that moment she was ‘poofed’ at the Beta Kindergarten.

“What did you do?” Jasper asked. Time had healed wounds and in many respects she was impressed that Peridot had managed to survive on Earth on her own. She still when she had been assigned to this mission. Sometimes she joked that Peridot didn’t need an escort at all. Peridot took this statement very seriously and would puff with pride.

Like she was now.

“I have metal powers.”

“Do peridots usually have that?”

“No. Just me. I’m a rather unique and precious gem.” And then her pride falthered and she was suddenly smaller than she was already. “But I stabbed you in the back.” She rubbed her arm, chin low. “I know how you feel about gems who use back handed tactics.”

“Yeah, but have you ever heard me talk about those that fall for those tactics?” Jasper arched a brow and under her toothy smile, Peridot brightened again.


	12. Crack the Whip

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few months ago I was rewatching old episodes with my girlfriend who had never watched Steven Universe before. In that time I noticed things I hadn't before and was inspired to write more tiny stories.

_i_  
The jingle for the burger commercial was stuck in Sadie’s head all morning, keeping her company until Lars suddenly appeared, remarkably purple and unlike himself.

 

 _ii_  
Amethyst was used to rushing her regeneration but it wasn’t that she didn’t want to think about herself- there just wasn’t time! 

Not while Jasper was out there, alone with Steven and Connie.


	13. Three Gems and a Baby

The first song Greg sang for Steven was: “Carabiner. . . Carabiner. ..!” and although Steven had long outgrown the song, Greg found himself singing it years later on a snowy evening, while getting ready to take Steven’s friend Connie home before the snow got worse.


	14. Steven's Dream

The year Greg thought disco was coming back, he had made lots of mistakes, the remnants of that time were a silver jumpsuit and an unreleased record, buried in Rose’s stash in the dessert. She offered to hold onto the jumpsuit for him too but he decided to keep it- just in case.


	15. Adventures in Light Distortion

Steven had really meant to pick up the rubies on the way back, but as soon as they arrived at the zoo he forgot.


	16. Sadie Killer

She normally would have held back the urge to sing, but Lars was gone and she was tired, and she just didn’t care anymore.


	17. Kevin Party

The only “nice” shirt Steven owned was the one Connie gave him for his birthday. He wondered if she would be at Kevin’s party, if she would notice him, if she would talk to him.


End file.
